{"id":22097,"date":"2026-06-08T19:34:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T23:34:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=22097"},"modified":"2026-06-08T19:34:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T23:34:46","slug":"cocktail-time-by-p-g-wodehouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=22097","title":{"rendered":"‘Cocktail Time,’ by P.G. Wodehouse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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P.G. Wodehouse wrote five novels<\/strong> (as well as a timeless short story) about the Earl of Ickenham, better known as Uncle Fred. Cocktail Time<\/a><\/em> is the third in the series, placing the sequence somewhat later in time than I expected. One always envisions Wodehouse stories taking place in the 1920s or ’30s, but references here to television and World War II being in the past alert us to the fact that this one was actually published in 1958.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of a pr\u00e9cis of the plot, I think it will be more efficient to describe the story geographically. Imagine Dovetail Hammer, Berkshire, the stately home of Johnny Pearce, one of Uncle Fred\u2019s godsons. Johnny wants very much to get married, but he doesn\u2019t feel he can afford it. He\u2019s not very wealthy, and upkeep on the manor is high. On top of that, he feels obligaed to pension off his imperious childhood nurse, who\u2019s gotten accustomed to thinking of herself as major domo of the estate. He can\u2019t expect his new bride to deal with that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One measure he\u2019s taken to increase his income is to turn Hammer Lodge, a smaller dwelling on the estate, into a rental house. It is now being occupied by Sir Raymond \u201cBeefy\u201d Bastable, the eminent London barrister. Beefy\u2019s great secret, known to few, is that he is the author of Cocktail Time<\/em>, a scandalous bestselling novel about today\u2019s dissipated young men. (He wrote the novel after having his hat knocked off by a Brazil nut shot from a catapult (slingshot) out of a window of the Drones Club, unaware that the actual shooter was not a dissipated young man, but Uncle Fred himself). Beefy has persuaded his worthless nephew, Cosmo Wisdom, to take public credit for authorship, in order to preserve his own reputation. However, he has taken the precaution of writing a letter establishing his own authorship, in case it should be necessary. And now that his agent has started talking about film rights, Beefy is reconsidering his claim \u2013 only the letter has been stolen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This covers only the high points. There are several cases of sundered hearts in this tale, and Uncle Fred is always keen on uniting sundered hearts, as part of his general life project of “spreading sweetness and light.” His usual method of spreading s. and l. is by telling bald-faced, shameless lies, gently shepherding the unhappy couples into proximity, and arranging for them to acquire sufficient resources to set up housekeeping. A novelty in this story is that several of the sundered couples consist of middle-aged people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lots of fun. Cocktail Time<\/em> is about mid-level on the Wodehouse scale, which exists on an infinitely higher plane than any other humorist\u2019s work. Recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

P.G. Wodehouse wrote five novels (as well as a timeless short story) about the Earl of Ickenham, better known as Uncle Fred. Cocktail Time is the third in the series, placing the sequence somewhat later in time than I expected. One always envisions Wodehouse stories taking place in the 1920s or ’30s, but references here … Continue reading ‘Cocktail Time,’ by P.G. Wodehouse<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[4222,4184,4223],"class_list":["post-22097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-cocktail-time","tag-p-g-wodehouse-2","tag-uncle-fred"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22097"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22100,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22097\/revisions\/22100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}